Street Skateboarding Rankings - World Skateboarding Federation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Brendi Rawlin
Lee & London
619-546-7488
[email protected]
World Skateboarding Federation Unveils First Ever Street Skateboarding Rankings
(London, United Kingdom – July 1, 2015) — World Skateboarding Federation, a governing body for
skateboarding, released today its ranking system for street skateboarding. The ranking system was one of the
key elements of the Skate 20/20 Agenda designed to help skateboarding organize in preparation for a potential
Olympic opportunity, set forth at the first ever Global Skateboarding Summit in Istanbul in May 2015. The
ranking system was well received by the WSF board members and the summit attendees and was adopted
following summit.
The ranking system is the first-ever street skateboarding ranking to include all the top contests. Individual
skaters are ranked based on their contest performance in the top 10 skate events globally, including
Skateboarding World Championships, X Games, Dew Tour, Street League, Copenhagen Pro, Tampa Pro, Simple
Sessions, Mystic Cup, PS4 Series, Adrenalin Games, and DC Invitational Sao Paulo.
Top 10 Street Skateboarders for 2014 (Beginning July 15, rankings will be updated live for 2015)
1. Kelvin Hoefler – Brasil
2. Nyjah Huston – USA
3. Ryan Decenzo – USA
4. Ishod Wair – USA
5. Luan Oliveira, Brasil
6. Trevor Colden, USA
7. Chaz Ortiz, USA
8. Alec Majerus, Canada
9. Ryan Sheckler, USA
10. Shane O’Neill, USA
For the complete list of 2014 rankings, click here. The WSF website also features rankings from other
skateboarding disciplines, including slalom, downhill and street. The street skateboarding ranking system was
based on discussions at the Global Skateboarding Summit as well as meetings with key international
skateboarding leaders. The ranking system uses multipliers for international broadcasting rights and the size of
the contest purse.
“This comprehensive ranking system was based on months of research, and finally discussions and meetings
among our board and other prominent leaders in the international skateboarding community,” said Tim
McFerran, board president of World Skateboarding Federation. “The challenge was how to use the three
prominent, invite-only contests – X Games, Dew Tour and Street League -- in the ranking system since there are
no qualifiers for those contests nor criteria for skaters to be selected. While most sports rankings would not
include the invite-only contests, after much discussion, we determined that because of the high profile of these
events, at this time, they should be used in the ranking calculations. We hope that some of these contests will
convert to an open qualifier or utilize these rankings in their invites, so that skateboarders from around the
world are given an equal opportunity to compete. This ranking system will allow skaters tremendous exposure,
providing the best competition to challenge skaters and furthering the growth and exposure of the sport and its
athletes by offering them a global platform.”
WSF has assembled a strong board made up of core international representatives and pro skateboarders from
all disciplines and is working to unify skateboarding as part of its five year plan: the Skate 20/20 Agenda. Based
on feedback from the global skateboarding community at the summit in May, WSF has been working to provide
some of the needed infrastructure within the skateboarding community. The six key initiatives of the Skate
20/20 Agenda are:
1) Develop 40 National Governing Organizations over the next two years (WSF is already working with
eight countries and will have those governing bodies set up by the end of the year)
2) Create a minimum of 17 WSF-sanctioned regional and national contests that feed into national
championship events, by 2016
3) Create and support a global youth development program
4) Create a universal scoring system
5) Host International Judging Conference (Inaugural contest to be held in October 2015 in Kimberley,
South Africa to coincide with Skateboarding World Championships)
6) Host annual Global Skateboarding Summit. The 2016 summit host candidates include Glasgow, Montreal
and Mexico City.
About World Skateboarding Federation (WSF)
World Skateboarding Federation a governing body of skateboarding and the leader in providing skateboarders
around the world with funds to help pay for travel expenses to attend international contests. The WSF Board of
Directors are: Tim McFerran, WSF Board President, Sasha Steinhorst, United States; Maga McWhinnie, Peru;
Paco Manzanares, Mexico; Stefan Lillis Akesson, Sweden; Kevin Harris, Canada; Cyrille Harnay, France; Felix
Arguelles, United States; Tim Gavin, United States; Jani Söderhäll, France; Andrew Brophy, Australia; and Hans
Koraeus, Sweden.
WSF actively donates skateboards to youth in poverty stricken areas and supports worthwhile skateboarding
organizations like Skateistan in South Africa. WSF is currently working with a number of countries, providing
leadership and expertise, to help them form national federations. The mission of the World Skateboarding
Federation is to promote skateboarding around the world; to grow and connect relevant skateboarders,
organizations, brands and manufacturers for the further expansion of skateboarding; to assist in building quality
skateparks; to provide financial assistance to top skateboarders to attend international skateboarding contests;
to create a centralized judging and scoring system; and to provide a platform to create national, regional and
local contests. World Skateboarding federation is a USA incorporated nonprofit 501-c-3 organization. For more
information visit www.worldskateboardingfederation.org.
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